Saturday Morning for Saturday 20 February 2021

8:10 South Africa's Covid response: Fatima Hassan

New Zealand has begun its Covid-19 vaccine programme.

But countries such as South Africa have been struggling to access adequate supplies of vaccines after wealthier countries stockpiled more doses than they could possibly use.

This is despite the work of COVAX, the organisation set up to improve access to vaccines for low and middle income countries.

It's forecast that some poorer countries will have to wait until 2022 and beyond before vaccines are widely available.

Fatima Hassan is a human rights lawyer and the founder of the Health Justice Initiative in South Africa.

8:30 Andrew Whitley: Flour to the people

For over 40 years British man Andrew Whitley has been on a mission to change the way our bread is made.

He says the spongy white stuff that dominates supermarket bread aisles, originally developed to fuel hungry mill and factory workers through the Industrial Revolution, just isn't nutritious or healthy.

So to fight back he co-founded Bread Matters, and more recently Scotland The Bread, a collaborative project to grow better grain and bake better bread with the common purposes of nourishment, sustainability and food sovereignty.

9:05 Girl A author Abigail Dean

Former bookseller Abigail Dean now works as a lawyer for Google. But last year she took some time off before turning 30 to write her debut novel.

Girl A is already being tipped as one of the books of the year, and tells the story of Lex: a girl who escapes from monstrous parents.

It's being reported that the novel is being adapted into a TV show by Johan Renck, the director of the hit 2019 Sky/HBO mini-series Chernobyl.

9:35 Cather Simpson: quantitative immunity testing

Scientist and entrepreneur Professor Cather Simpson founded the University of Auckland's Photon Factory laser lab, and is part of spin-off business Orbis Diagnostics which has developed a "lab on a disc" which enables on-farm testing for bovine fertility

Professor Simpson and her team are now trying to harness similar technology in the fight against Covid-19 by developing Quantitative Immunity Testing to quickly detect someone's Covid-19 immunity status, and whether they can transmit the virus to others.

With results available in around 15 minutes, the hope is that the system could be used at airports to test air passengers before they board a flight.

10:05 Australian prison podcast: Johanna Bell and Rocket Renae

Birds Eye View, a podcast made by some of the 80 female inmates inside the woman's section of the Darwin Correctional Centre in Australia's Northern Territory is proving an audio hit.

It recently took out the Australian Podcast of The Year award, winning over the judges with its inside look at goings on behind bars presented in a magazine-style format.

You'll hear the ladies of Sector Four at work cleaning Qantas headsets, sharing beauty hacks, horoscopes, celebrity interviews, love letters, poetry and lots of their own stories.

We speak to two people who were instrumental in its creation: producer Johanna Bell, and former Darwin Correctional Centre resident Renae "Rocket" Bretherton.

10:40 Artist Kate Newby: turning galleries inside out

Walter Prize winning US-based New Zealand artist Kate Newby's work involves the transformation of gallery spaces using architectural 'interventions' that take shape in consultation with the people commissioning the art work.

"This includes new window panes, carving into and building over floors, and extending the exhibition space to encompass outside areas and even a small city park within the gallery's sightline".

Her new exhibition Yes Tomorrow opens Saturday 20 February at Victoria University of Wellington's Adam Art Gallery Te Pātaka Toi and runs until 31 May.

11:05 Julia Gillard: women and leadership

Julia Gillard was the 27th Prime Minister of Australia. She is currently the inaugural Chair of the Global Institute for Women's Leadership at Kings College London, which seeks to address women's under-representation in leadership positions.

Her second book Women and Leadership: Real Lives, Real Lessons is co-authored with the Nigerian economist Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala who made history earlier this week when she was appointed head of the World Trade Organisation (the first woman and first African to hold the position).

Gillard also hosts a podcast called  A Podcast Of One's Own where she shares the stories of prominent female leaders.

11:40 Kate's Klassics: The Talented Mr Ripley

Poet and writer Kate Camp returns to discuss a historic work of classic literature. This week, Patricia Highsmith's 1955 psychological thriller The Talented Mr Ripley.

The novel introduced the world to the scheming Tom Ripley, a character who returned in four further novels. Shortly after its release, in 1956, the Mystery Writers of America nominated the novel for the Edgar Allan Poe Award.

In 1957, the novel won the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière as best international crime novel. And in 2019 the BBC named it on its list of 100 most influential novels of all time.

It has also been adapted several times for stage and screen, perhaps most memorably in the 1999 Anthony Minghella film of the same name starring Matt Damon as Tom Ripley, alongside Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, Cate Blanchett and the late Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Books mentioned in this show:

DO Sourdough
by Andrew Whitley
Published by The DO Book Co

Bread Matters Book
by Andrew Whitley
Published by Fourth Estate

Girl A
By Abigail Dean
ISBN: 9780008389055
Published by HarperCollins

Women and Leadership -Real Lives, Real Lessons
By Julia Gillard and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala
ISBN: 9780143794288
Published by Penguin

The Talented Mr Ripley
By Patricia Highsmith
ISBN: 9780099282877
Published by Vintage

 

 

 

Music played in this show

Song: Kyoto
Artist Phoebe Bridgers
Played at 9.36

Song: Old Blue Eyes
Artist: Waylon Payne
Played at 9:50

Song: Run The World (Girls)
Artist: Beyonce
Played at 11:50